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In December, a man from Wisconsin with the username the_alpha_k9 on TikTok uploaded a testimonial-style video to the platform, telling his thousands of followers that he would not be taking a Covid-19 vaccine.
“You tell me that in 40 years of research, there is no vaccine against HIV … for cancer, no vaccine … for colds, no vaccine,” he said. . “Yet within a year we developed a vaccine against COVID-19 and you want me to take it… thank you, but no thank you. “
It was one of the many debunked and mainstream anti-vaccination talking points that permeated many social platforms during the Covid-19 pandemic. But on TikTok, where users regularly repurpose popular audio tracks to create their own videos, it took a life of its own. More than 4,500 videos containing audio have been made, which have been viewed more than 16 million times, according to a report released Monday by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based organization that tracks disinformation.
It’s an example of what researchers say is a problem unique to the video platform, which in recent years has become a hugely popular destination for everything from viral dance routines to comedy skits and faith-based content.
“People use TikTok to post and host false information about Covid, and it’s very popular,” Ciaran O’Connor said, analyst for the Institute of Strategic Dialogue and lead author of a new app misinformation report. “This function is used exactly as TikTok designed it. Audio is shared and reacted. But the consequence is that it creates a feedback loop of anti-vaccine narratives. “
After a request for comment, TikTok has removed or restricted the distribution of videos and audio shared in the report.
A spokesperson for TikTok said in a statement, “We strive to promote an authentic TikTok experience by limiting the dissemination of deceptive content, including audio, and by promoting authoritative information on COVID-19 and vaccines. in our app. Misinformation is an industry-wide challenge, and we are grateful for the reports that help us take action when it is breached. “
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue has been tracking disinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine being disseminated through TikTok’s sounds feature. He found that anti-vaccination audio tracks went viral as a sort of chain message, with claims and original content often being hidden by TikTok. In other words, a TikTok feature is used to post or amplify content that violates TikTok’s policy against Covid-19 disinformation.
The man behind the_alpha_k9, a relatively small account by TikTok standards with around 28,000 followers, did not respond to requests for comment, and the original video has been deleted. The video, a recitation of a popular anti-vaccine meme, would be reported later in December by several disinformation platforms and debunked by fact-checkers who noted significant differences between the diseases she cited and Covid -19, as well as a misunderstanding of mRNA vaccine development.
TikTok is the world’s fastest growing social media app, with around 100 million monthly active US users and 2 billion downloads worldwide, according to the company. The app provides an easy way to create videos on existing backing tracks and it shows users videos based on a powerful recommendation algorithm.
The Institute for Strategic Dialogue analyzed 124 TikTok videos presenting misinformation about vaccines for its report. The videos have garnered over 20 million views and 2 million likes, comments and shares. Only two videos featured a tag directing users to factual information, a security feature rolled out in December to fight the rise in vaccine misinformation on the platform.
TikTok has promoted its crackdown on Covid-19 disinformation since then as part of a pledge to “keep TikTok safe for creative expression throughout the pandemic,” according to a company blog post. “We take our responsibility to keep harmful disinformation out of TikTok incredibly seriously.”
The report’s findings are probably just the tip of an iceberg.
“TikTok is a bit of a walled garden,” O’Connor said, noting the challenges of tracking content on the platform. “Misinformation is harder to find but also harder to fight for TikTok or the fact checkers.”
The videos are also used to target specific communities, O’Connor said. Several users had translated the audio into other languages. Although the sounds are less common and less popular, some people have used them to react with videos by checking facts or refuting claims.
A video – which used audio from deleted content in which a woman claiming to be a nurse said she suffered from Bell’s palsy after being vaccinated – indicated how much misinformation seemed to target black users, according to the report. An Associated Press fact check determined that “the details of the video do not match” including that there was no record of a registered nurse under the woman’s name. Still, the video has spread across many platforms. The video, captioned “They want black people to take it first for a reason,” was removed from TikTok, but the sound is still available and it has been used to create new anti-vaccination content.
The user behind Another Sound, who describes herself as a mother of three, claimed in an article that TikTok deleted her video “for community violations.” She had released a recording believed to be from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, urging some people not to get the vaccine for a year and releasing false claims of widespread deaths from the vaccine.
Its original video was removed in April, but the sound is still available, and it has been used in 375 videos, the most popular of which racking up tens of thousands of views. None have information labels.
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